


Four Months

by bogfable



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Christianity, Homophobia, LGBTQ Themes, Late Night Conversations, Misogyny, Other, Past Relationship(s), Religion, Secret Relationship, Self-Esteem Issues, Slut Shaming, Summer, Teen Pregnancy, Teenagers, Trans Character, this is a very yeehaw fanfic...makes me wanna run into a cornfield
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2020-03-06 01:05:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18840481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bogfable/pseuds/bogfable
Summary: Something I wrote almost exactly a year ago (chapter 1 & 2).. I found it just now and it was actually not as badly written as I thought it might be..In which Jasper has been missing a lot of school and so Amethyst and Peridot finally make the long, long trek to her family's farm to check on her.This feels very south/midwestern.. I think I was reading Bone Gap by Laura Ruby at the time that I wrote this and listening to Frontier Ruckus' albums The Orion Songbook and Deadmalls & Nightfalls, and also Iron & Wine.If this fanfic had a colour it'd be a warm yellow..





	1. The Dirt Road

On the Tuesday afternoon that Peridot and Amethyst decided to visit the farm, Jasper hadn’t been at school for three months. She’d stopped coming in March. Now it was June, summer vacation rolling in with the yellow evenings and choruses of insects.

Peridot and Amethyst knew that Jasper was at least alive, they’d spoken to her on the phone. But she’d told them she wasn’t well, that they shouldn’t visit. Jasper refused to tell them specifics. Often Peridot placed the phone back on the receiver and turned to Amethyst as they shrugged at each other.

“Weird,” Amethyst often said.

 

The farm was outside of town and too far away to just pop in with a “ _hello”, and a “how are you?”_. Amethyst and Peridot decided that Tuesday that they wanted to see what was going on. Peridot had said at first that they should respect Jasper’s privacy, crossing their arms across their chest proudly. But they had been quickly swayed by Amethyst sitting upright and asking, “What if she’s dying?”

So, both Peridot and Amethyst cycled for an hour, riding along miles of tarmac until they were out of town and then several more just to get to the long entrance road of the farm. It was uphill, dusty from the rainless past week. A scattering of rocks and potholes lay ready to burst a tire. 

“ _God_ ,” Amethyst panted, hopping off her bike. It fell to the road with a _clunk_. She wiped her forehead and flapped the bottom of her t-shirt. “I’m sweating buckets.”

“Gross,” Peridot replied, following suit and almost falling as they tried to carefully step off their own lime-green bike, legs wobbling. They removed their glasses, wiping them on the hem of their t-shirt before pushing them back atop their nose. 

“Guess we gotta push our bikes the rest of the way,” Amethyst sighed. She picked up her bike by the handlebar. “I don’t want mine getting stolen.” 

“Yeah,” Peridot replied. They groaned and started to follow Amethyst, who’d already began to walk. Luckily they both had short legs, so it wasn’t too hard to catch up. Peridot struggled to walk beside anyone over 5’5. Once or twice Jasper had given her a piggy-back ride because she’d gotten so fed up with waiting for Peridot to keep up.

 

 

They reached the house even sweatier than before. Amethyst slung off her backpack, throwing to the ground. 

“ _Je-sus_ ,” she breathed as they both peered at the house, circled by the shed, the coop, and a small barn. Beyond lay sprawling, whispering fields and a neat citrus grove. 

There was movement nearby. Someone was definitely home. As they stood, catching their breath, Peridot realised that they hadn’t even considered that there was a possibility they’d turn up to an empty house. They could’ve come all this way for nothing. But no, the chickens were flapping around and the washing was freshly hung out on the line, still dripping. A tractor chugged away in the nearby field. 

“Where do you think she is?” Amethyst asked, catching her breath. She dropped her bike into the grass. Insects scattered, leaping, flying to safety. 

“I don’t know,” Peridot replied, carefully leaning her bike against a wooden fence post. “What if she’s not even here?” Peridot groaned. They put their head in their hands, crouching down in the grass. 

“Oh no, we’re not gonna give up now, Peri,” said Amethyst. She pulled Peri back to their feet with a grunt, sighed, put her hands on her hips. For a moment no one said anything. The insects buzzed, flitting through the shadows, through the heat rising off the baking earth. 

Amethyst gasped. “There!” she cried. 

Peridot’s eyes followed the direction of Amethyst’s pointing finger to someone who was unmistakably Jasper pushing open the shed doors. Her hair was tied back, braided, but still, it was a sandy beige and long enough to sit on. She turned at the commotion, door to the shed by her house half opened. When she saw Peridot and Amethyst she turned and ran, darting behind the house. 

“What the hell?” Amethyst said as she scratched her head. Before Peridot could say anything like: _she looks different_ , or: _let’s leave her alone_ , Amethyst was sprinting after her. 

“Oh, my _stars_ ,” Peridot sighed. They followed Amethyst’s tracks, walking as quickly as they could on their jelly-legs, yelping as they tried to avoid a chicken as it emerged from a long patch of grass.

Shouting met Peridot’s ears as they came to the house. They turned around the corner to see Amethyst trying to push open the back door, Jasper pushing back.

“Go away!” yelled Jasper. She pushed the door closed as Amethyst leaned against it.

“Tell me what’s wrong then!” Amethyst retorted, pressing her shoulder into the door.

“Come on,” she grunted, starting to kick the door. “ _Hermanas ayudan a hermanas_!” A kick for each word.

“I’m not your sister!” Jasper shouted through the door. 

She didn't speak Spanish fluently like Amethyst but she’d been told that particular saying enough times to know that it meant ‘sisters help sisters’. Today she did not feel like being a sister, she wanted to be left as an only child. 

Amethyst groaned, stepping back from the door and down the steps. The door slammed closed. There was a thud as Jasper presumably fell against it, not anticipating Amethyst to stop pushing. Peridot winced. 

Amethyst cursed several times, kicking a stone hard against the house. She wasn’t the type to give up though. 

“Jasper?” she called.

There was a pause and Amethyst crossed her arms, leaning back against the wall. 

“What?” Jasper snapped. 

“Can we just talk to you?” Amethyst tried. “We came to make sure you weren’t dying. You could be -I don’t know- a teeny bit grateful.” 

There was a loud sigh. Then, a shuffling as Jasper pulled aside the curtain that covered the small door window, her face appearing at the glass. Her eyebrows almost met as she frowned. 

“Okay. Thanks for checking. You can go,” she said. 

“Can we at least get a drink?” asked Amethyst, squinting through the dirty glass. “Peri’s totally gonna pass out.”

Peridot stood up straight, realising they’d been staring at their feet. 

“I think I actually might,” they said.

Jasper had startled and now stared at Peridot, having not noticed them arrive. They were swaying a little, like the fields. 

“Why are you here?” Jasper asked, more aggressively than she’d meant to. Peridot stared back at her and threw their hands up.

“Uhh, to make sure you’re okay! Duh! You haven’t been at school for ages!”

Through the window Jasper looked a little taken aback. A little angry. A little guilty. A little scared. She wasn’t scared of Peridot -who was one of the least scary people in town (unless you took her things from her without asking)- but Amethyst could see that there was something, she just had no idea what it could be. Probably whatever she was hiding.

Peridot kept going, “Jasper I swear I’ll pass out right here in your yard and probably die from heatstroke or dehydration!”

There was a pause.

“I’ll get you something,” Jasper said. She got up off her knees and walked away from the back door. 

“Holy shit! Just let us in!” Amethyst yelled after her. There was no one else home but she hadn’t considered if there would be as she screamed at the house. Peridot cringed in case there was. They knew it was unlikely though because Jasper’s dad drove the tractor and the tractor was out ploughing fields. 

“Oh my _Gooooooood,_ ” groaned Amethyst. She hopped up the stairs and kicked the door.

“Amethyst! We’re going to get in trouble,” Peridot hissed.

“Whatever.”

“They have a shotgun. Like five. Maybe more.”

“She’s not going to shoot us, Peri,” Amethyst rolled her eyes before kicking the door once more. This time it opened. 

“Huh,” said Amethyst as she turned to Peridot.

“Oh,” said Peridot as Jasper stepped into the hallway. She held a glass of water in one hand. Her other hand pressed to her lower abdomen, which was more-than-slightly rounded, stretching her top. 

Before anyone could say anything Amethyst ran inside. Peridot leaned against the wall, still swaying, and made an odd squeaking sound. The sound they’d make when they got caught. 

“Holy shit!” they heard Amethyst cry out. 

Peridot peaked around the doorframe. Jasper and Amethyst were still standing in the hallway, Amethyst pointing to Jasper’s stomach.

“Girl, what happened?” she asked. 

Jasper didn’t reply. She didn’t do anything at all. As if she was struggling to process what had just happened. Her cheeks turned blotchy red. Peridot hurried inside, worried for the glass Jasper still held. They took it from her and held it between their hands, feeling the cold seep into their warm palms. 

 

 

Amethyst decided it was best to go to Jasper’s bedroom, leading the others behind her. It was organised, decorated with sports awards, the bed made neatly despite it’s mismatched orange striped and pink floral pillows. A bouquet of meddles hung from a shelf bracket above the wood bedside table. 

Amethyst hopped onto the bed (without asking), pulling at Jasper’s wrist until she sat down beside her. Peridot stood awkwardly by the open door, sipping the glass of water. 

“What the hell happened?” Amethyst asked. 

Peridot eyed the shiny golden cross that hung above the bed. They’d never been to Jasper’s home before and now they wondered if it upset her when people said things like _what the_ _hell_ or _oh my God_ or _Jesus Christ_. Jasper was upset now but it definitely wasn’t because of what Amethyst had said. 

“You can’t tell anyone,” Jasper told Amethyst. 

She was staring at her knees, one bruised and scraped, long legs stretching out from her shorts. Though her eyebrows still angrily furrowed she looked as if she was trying very hard not to cry. 

Amethyst took her turn to look guilty. 

“Who- What… What happened?” she asked again.

They met eyes. Peridot couldn’t see Jasper’s face but she could see Amethyst’s worried raise of her eyebrows. Quietly they hugged, wrapping their arms so tight around each other that their knuckles went white. Amethyst looked at Peridot through her fringe as she pressed her cheek on Jasper’s shoulder. 

It was a look and a slight head shake that said _I don’t get what happened_ and then _Maybe leave us alone for a moment_. 

Peridot nodded, they weren’t usually good with subtle hints but they knew enough about Amethyst to understand hers. They left the bedroom and sat down on the cool hallway floor, happy at least to be out the sun.

 

 

Jasper was first to pull away from the hug. She sat back on her bed against the wall, hands in her lap as she picked dirt from beneath her fingernails. Amethyst bit her lip. Outside, atop the coop, the cockerel crowed and flapped his feathers. 

“My dad is really angry,” Jasper said, voice wavering, almost a whisper. As if she had read Amethyst’s mind she added, “But I’m not allowed to get an abortion. It’s against God’s wishes.” 

Amethyst bit her lip, pressed them together. 

“You know that’s a total lie, right?” she tried.

Jasper shot her a look.

“I mean- What I mean is that God probably would see you and think ‘oh yeah, that’s not good’ and then be totally okay with it.”Amethyst said with a shrug.

Having been brought up with the option to choose her religion Amethyst had never decided or felt like she needed to. She also didn’t know much about how it all worked but she hoped that if there was a God that they would be fair and non-judgemental towards all the fairly decent people.

 

Jasper’s father taught her otherwise. She was certain she’d go to hell and that terrified her and made her feel like a rotten, guilty daughter. 

Often her own thoughts berated her with more names and stinging insults then any actual person would. Only because people were afraid of her. Not many teenage girls are over six foot tall (no one had ever measured exactly how tall) and muscular (each day was filled to bursting with sports and helping on the farm —anything to have the only thoughts in her head to be _What’s next?_ or _I’m exhausted_ ). But the disapproving looks from her father and the church goers felt like an extra hard kick in the gut. Their immediate conclusion from Jasper’s appearance was that she was a lesbian and to them that meant she was just a confused feminist trying to fill the role of men. 

Jasper didn’t know what she was. 

However, she did know that the things those people said about lesbians and feminists were really, really stupid. Amethyst had explained those things well. 

The church goers also firmly agreed that abortion was wrong. They cried in sermons for the unborn babies and blamed the mothers, who they called sinners and whores through private, gritted teeth. 

One Sunday the previous month Jasper had excused herself to hide in the bathroom as talk of babies and abortion became heated, spirited. She was dirt and filth and sin and it made her want to tear herself to shreds.

 

 

“I can’t do it,” Jasper said. She pressed her lips together.

Amethyst took a moment to find something to say.

“What? So you’re just going to not leave your house for like, the-” she stopped, interrupting herself. “How is- How grown is the baby? How long has it been?” 

Jasper sat for a moment, squinting, trying to figure out what Amethyst was asking before she replied.

“I don’t know. Four months. I think.”

“You don’t even know?”

“All I have is this book. My dad got it from this woman at church,” said Jasper. She reached over and pulled a book out from the stack of novels and notebooks on her bedside table. Amethyst grabbed it from her hand. The cover was littered with words like _blessed_ and _miracle_ , accompanied by a woman dressed all in white smiling as she held a perfect baby.

“Yikes,” Amethyst pulled a face.

“I know,” Jasper sighed as she took the book back. 

“No offence but that looks like it’s for white housewives who live in the suburbs with one of those white fences and flowerbeds.” 

Jasper huffed a small laugh. There was a “Ha!” from Peridot in the hallway. They were solving and unsolving the mini rubik’s cube that they kept in their pocket. 

“Hey, Amethyst,” Peridot called through the door, “It’s getting kinda late. If you want to get home for dinner we should go.”

Amethyst jumped up off the bed as Peridot stepped into the doorway, tapping their watch.

“Aw shit, we gotta bike all the way back,” Amethyst groaned. 

Peridot groaned too, “Clods,” they cursed. They shoved the rubik’s cube into their pocket and picked up the empty glass from the floor, unintentionally reminding Amethyst how thirsty she’d been and how dry her mouth was.

“It’s okay, I can drive you,” Jasper said, pushing herself off the bed and stretching her legs. She pulled on a large flannel shirt, patterned sandstone yellow and dirt road brown. The fabric hung loose, hiding her stomach.

“I need a drink first,” Amethyst announced as she left the room. 

 

Once Amethyst had drank a full glass of water —followed by a glass of orange juice when she realised there was some in the fridge— and made a peanut butter sandwich for the road. They loaded the bikes into the back of Jasper’s pickup truck. It was her dad’s really, but since he’d taught Jasper to drive it last year Amethyst liked to call it Jasper’s. It was painted a rusty, earthy orange after all, Jasper’s favourite colour.

 

-

 

The sun was lowering itself from the cloudless sky, casting out golden beams that caught the dancing flies in their light. The pickup truck sat under a tree to keep it from scorching. To keep it’s paint from cracking like unwatered fields. Dappled sunspots freckled the roof and windows.

Jasper started the engine and they pulled out and down the dusty road. 

“Hey,” Amethyst said, between mouthfuls of peanut butter sandwich, “Jasper, did you go to a doctor?”

Jasper glanced over, pausing as the truck rumbled to the bottom of the dirt road. Gravel pinged off the body with a _tink, tink, tink_. There wasn’t another car in sight.

“No,” Jasper replied as she turned onto the main road. 

“What if the baby’s, like, sick?” 

“I don’t know. Just drop it now, okay?” 

“She’s right, Jasper. That sounds kind of dangerous,” Peridot chimed in from the back seat. 

No one spoke. Jasper’s jaw tightened. She didn’t want to be pregnant with a baby that would die. She didn’t want a baby at all. It was all too much and she was filthy and rotten and a slut. A slut filled up with dirt and Lapis and a baby. 

“You okay?” Amethyst asked, tilting her head to see Jasper’s face in the fading sunlight. Blush bloomed on her nose and under her eyes, shining wet. 

“Oh, jeez. Okay. You’re not okay,” Amethyst set her sandwich in her lap. 

Peridot peered from the back seat. 

“What’s happening?” they squeaked. 

Jasper gritted her teeth, roughly wiping her sleeve across her face.

“I’m fine,” she said, tightening her freckled hands on the steering wheel until they became white-knuckled. 

Amethyst leant back in her seat, inhaled, and sighed, “You always say that.”


	2. The Telephone and The Coop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention, but this fic is what i wrote before For When We Get There! That's why it's quite similar in setting, in fact the farm is exactly the same in my head. I've never drawn it or anything though..
> 
> Also this is the last bit of writing from last year..but hopefully I can add more for the next chapter. 
> 
> Also for those who arent familiar with my human headcanons already, Jasper is bulgarian/turkish (her mum is turkish, her dad bulgarian). Amethyst is mexican and peri is east-asian but i havent decided exactly yet.. im not sure.

The evening grew sleepily orange. The birds and the bugs sung quietly in the trees and dappled grass. The houses creaked, full of drowsy families, doing nothing much in the heat. 

Amethyst was in her bedroom —windows open— arranging a pile of her favourite round things in her wardrobe when the phone rang. 

“Amethyst! It’s for you,” Pearl called from downstairs.

Amethyst hopped up from her place on the carpet, cursing as a bouncy ball tumbled from the pile and bounced across the floor, rolling beneath the bed. She ran and jumped down the stairs, narrowly missing Pearl as she stood at the bottom. In one hand she held a mug off tea, in the other was the phone.

“Careful, Amethyst.” Pearl scolded. As she handed the phone over she said, “It’s Jasper. Tell her she missed the final track meeting and every other one over the past 8-or-so weeks. She won’t even _entertain_ the idea of listening to me—” 

“Got it.” Amethyst grabbed the phone and ran back upstairs. Jasper had probably heard anyway. 

“Hi,” said Amethyst, once the bedroom door was closed behind her and she was sitting in front of her pile of favourite round things again. She picked up a plastic orange, examining it in her hand.

Jasper just replied: “Tell Pearl I know about the meetings. I fucking know—”

“Hey. Chill. It’s fine. She’s just being uptight about it. Being Pearl-y.”

Amethyst placed the plastic orange near the back of the wardrobe, atop a beach ball that was slowly deflating and becoming less round. “So, why’d you call?”

“Do you know where to go to a doctor?” 

Amethyst half smiled, picking up a bag of jangling marbles. 

“Yeah. I mean no. But I know I can find somewhere,” she said.

“What’s that noise?” Jasper asked. Her voice was hoarse, crackling with a layer of static on top of that. The farm didn’t have especially reliable signal. 

“It’s marbles. For my favourite round thing collection.” 

“Oh.” 

After that no one said anything for a few minutes. Amethyst contemplated wether she should separate the marbles or leave them in the bag. She knew which option Pearl would prefer. It would probably be for the best. For now.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Amethyst asked. 

“Okay.” There was hesitation in Jasper’s voice.

Amethyst would have replied with ‘You just did’. But this was Jasper and Jasper didn’t really like jokes or _get_ them. She wasn’t stupid, just literal. 

“Who’s…baby is it? Like, who…” Amethyst trailed off.

Silence. A silence that lasted too long. 

“Jasper?” Amethyst said, concerned.

“I don’t know. I can’t tell you,” Jasper replied. 

Amethyst huffed tiredly. 

“You can’t tell me?” she repeated. “Wha— Why?”

She set the bag of marbles at the base of the pile so she could figure out what to do with them later. She got up and hopped onto her bed. The pile of plush toys went tumbling across the pillows. 

Jasper didn’t say anything else. Amethyst was thinking of what to say when she heard Jasper’s father call out.

“Jaska? Downstairs. Now,” he ordered.

Jasper —who’s birth name was Jaska , though it’d been mispronounced so often that it’d morphed entirely into something people knew how to say— audibly gasped. 

“I have to go,” she said, hanging up before Amethyst could reply. 

Amethyst sat for a moment, angry at first, before remembering that this was Jasper’s father and it was best not to disagree with him or make him wait. 

He was a stern man. A God fearing man. The kind of man to wish for a son and refuse to learn how to raise a daughter. Amethyst recalled an argument in which he’d told Jasper that all women were weak, destined to sin, and that’s why they bleed.

Amethyst was the one to explain to Jasper what a period was. 

 

-

 

When Jasper’s father had found a used —and positive— pregnancy test hidden in the bottom of the bin one cold day in early April, he’d taken it and headed around the back of the house. He marched to the coop where his daughter was lifting planks of wood, and hit her, square across her freckled cheek. Then he demanded, shaking his finger in her face, that she explained what she had done. 

“Are you crazy? What are you doing!?” Jasper had shouted at him. She might have pushed him away. She didn’t.

“You did this? Whore!” her father had yelled back, too angry to speak proper English. He held out the pregnancy test.

“You’re a disgrace to this family!” he yelled, in Bulgarian this time. “What would your mother think of you? What would God think?”

Jasper didn’t say anything. All she could think at that moment was how much she wanted to cradle her stinging cheek in her hand. She couldn’t. Her arms ached, filled to the brim with planks to mend the caved in roof of the crumbling coop. 

“He’d be disgusted, Jaska,” her father continued, “and your mother, she would be just as disgusted. What do you think she thought of you as she watched from Heaven?” 

Jasper glared at him through her welling tears. He could call her what he wanted, scream at her, hit her, she didn’t care —or so she told herself. But with each mention of her mother a guilty pit grew deeper in Jasper’s stomach. The kind of pit that if it were left to grow, could swallow her whole. 

Her father threw the pregnancy test at her feet. His eyes were penetrating, livid as a bull, the same pale hazel-green that his daughter had inherited. With a final, searing look he walked away, got in the pickup truck and drove to the church, where he asked the pastor if there was any way to reverse the sin brought upon his family.

-

 

Jasper’s father’s footsteps thumped up the stairs. He called out again before barging into her bedroom.

“Who were you calling?” He asked, not in English.

Jasper had set the phone down on the receiver and pushed it away from herself as if it were dangerous. 

“My _friend_ ,” she replied. 

Her father exhaled through his nose. 

“A boy?” he questioned. 

“No.” Jasper stood from where she sat on the carpet, tired legs aching. Try as she might, Jasper could not see herself at nine months, pushing herself upright with a swollen stomach. She couldn’t see a baby being born. Her baby. It didn’t feel real. 

Remembering that it was real, that she was going to give birth at some point in the coming months, made her want to scream and cry and break things and crash the pickup truck into a ditch.

“God sees through your lies,” Jasper’s father said as he turned and walked out the door. 

“Good thing I’m not lying,” muttered Jasper.

Her father turned around, his face only inches away. “Don’t talk back to me, girl. Don’t you dare.” 

Jasper could smell the smoke on his breath, the sweat on his skin. As she backed away her father huffed and angry laugh. 

As he turned away he said: “Come downstairs, there’s plenty of washing up to be done.” 

Jasper followed him down the groaning, creaking stairs, staring at the balding spot on the crown of his head.

For an hour she washed up, vacuumed and swept. 

For an hour she tried to keep her eyelids from fluttering closed. 


	3. The Quiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jasper sneaks out to see someone...

Night rolled in completely just after eight, the dry heat of the day still lingering in the air, rising off of the scorched dirt roads. A cool breeze had picked up though, whistling through the barns, whispering in the tall grass. It soothed the burns of the midday sun.

 

Since Amethyst’s visit the day before Jasper had been antsy. She’d paced around, hanging up washing and watering the cacti that lined her bedroom windowsill — they kept shrivelling in the sun. Her hands shook as she hammered a nail into a broken fence to stop the coyotes eating the hens, sweat rolling down her neck.

Jasper couldn’t shake the feeling that she needed to talk to someone. Not to Amethyst or Peridot or her father —never her father— but to Lapis. 

Jasper dialled the number and the phone rang for a while, it always did. As she waited, Jasper sunk to the cool floorboards.

“Hello?” said the voice on the other end, eventually.

Jasper cleared her throat and replied: “Hey. Lapis?”

“Jasper? Hey. It’s been a while,” said Lapis, voice lazy. 

“I was wondering…” Jasper began before Lapis could ask how she was doing. “Could we meet up tonight?”

There was a shuffling and a sigh. Jasper’s palms had become quite sweaty.

“Yeah…Okay. Now?”

“After midnight is probably best. Half past.” Jasper felt her heart skip. Her father would be asleep by then, snoring loudly as he lay on his back.

“Sure. Want me to come get you? Like, wait down on the main road?” Lapis asked. She had a way of making everything sound very unimportant. 

“Yeah.”

“Cool. See you then.” With that, Lapis hung up. 

She wasn’t one for formal goodbyes. 

 

The fan in the bathroom whirred, clattering, as the fresh draught whistled in. Jasper peeled her sweat-soaked t-shirt from her back and kicked off her beat-up jeans. They’d been her father’s before, but they were too small for him now. Jasper didn’t mind the holes forming at the back pockets or in the knees of the pleasantly soft denim, she sought comfort in the worn-in looseness of the familiar fabric. She kept her baby blanket in a shoebox in her wardrobe because it was coming apart at the seems and smelt like her mother. Her mother had made that blanket before she was born. 

Jasper couldn’t imagine doing the same. Not because she wouldn’t love her baby. But because she didn’t want to have one. She didn’t even believe herself when she thought about the fact that she would. 

Her father always called her a liar.

But this was real and when she looked down there was undeniable proof.

Before Jasper stepped into the cold shower, dying to rinse sweat and dirt from her body, she turned off the light. Seeing herself was too much to handle. Too much to deny. 

 

By midnight Jasper’s father was sound asleep. From the other end of the hallway Jasper could hear him snoring, his bed creaking as he moved. As quietly as she could, she got out of bed and pulled her father’s old plaid shirt on over her undervest. She slipped into track shorts and held her sneakers as she crept downstairs, holding her breath until she shut the back door behind her.

She thanked God.

This was not the first time she had done this.

Heart pounded against her ribs, Jasper ran down the dirt road. Her stomach was fluttery and light with equal parts anticipation and fear. She prayed for God to turn his head, to cover his eyes. 

Just for a couple hours.

Lapis was waiting in her car, pulled over on the silent main road. The window was cranked down and Lapis waved silently as she blew a puff of smoke into the night air. 

“Hey,” she whispered.

Jasper fell into the passenger seat, and as soon as she slammed the door closed Lapis began to drive. Lapis’ car protested as she floored it.

She’d made a point to choose a run-down, second-hand car, one with scratches and seats worn soft. She said it had charm, and that she liked the pale blue’s contrast against the red rust. 

Lapis’ mother hadn’t been pleased with her choice but Lapis had told Jasper: “She’s so much more disappointed in me for other reasons. She doesn’t give a shit about the car, really. Relative to everything else it’s basically nothing.”

As they sped away both Lapis and Jasper exhaled heavily. Disobeying their parents had the same horrible thrill as sneaking past a mountain lion’s cave.

“Holy shit,” said Lapis finally _._ “I get petrified just knowing I’m within a _mile_ of your dad.”

Jasper laughed half-heartedly. 

Lapis held a joint between her fingers as she swerved the car at a junction. She’d never been the best driver. 

“You get used to him,” Jasper said.

“That’s pretty fucked up, though,” replied Lapis. “Getting used to _him,_ I mean. He’d probably gun me down if he knew.”

Jasper pressed her lips together, rubbed her hand across her rounded stomach.

“Oh, fuck.” Lapis took her joint from between her lips. “I shouldn’t be smoking. Sorry.”

Jasper shrugged. “Right now…I don’t care,” she replied, and sighed. There was already a tremble in her lip as she spoke, a shake in her voice. She was so sick of crying. 

 

Beneath the water-tower the grass was cold and soft against their ankles. Lapis and Jasper sat on the hood of the car, faces to the stars. The world shone silver and blue in the moonlight. 

“I can’t do this,” Jasper said, not quite whispering.

Lapis raised questioning eyebrows. “Have a baby? Or…everything in general?” 

“Both.”

Lapis’ joint was finished and she rolled the butt between her fingers, searching for constellations she recognised in the night-blue above. Far above was the Summer Triangle and then Lyra, their stars blinked. Neither her nor Jasper spoke and a silence fell over them like a blanket, just a little smothering. Insects filled the quiet, singing melancholy songs. An owl hooted somewhere in the darkness and Lapis closed her eyes to imagine the soundless swoop of it’s wings. All at once she felt lonely and a need to escape. To drive.

“Jasper,” she whispered. The body besides her own was warm and trembling. “I’m sorry for _this_. All this shit.”

Jasper stared hard at the pale yellow moon, eyes watery. She pressed her lips together.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I’m not saying it is. I’m just sorry we fucked up…” Lapis’ voice was quieter now, barely there. Little grass-moths were landing on her arms. They danced, clinging to her dress and floaty trousers, tickling her skin, shining pearly white in the moonlight. A moth caught itself in Jasper’s hair and fluttered it’s tiny wings until it was free, dancing off into the darkness again. 

“What are you going to do?” asked Lapis.

For the first time that night, Jasper looked right at her. “I don’t know.”

“You aren’t getting an abortion though, right?”

“I would if I could.”

“Shit. Really? I thought—” Lapis sat up, looking down at Jasper.

“I know. I’m just— I’m hoping God will understand. Or I guess I’d be going to hell anyway. For not waiting till marriage.” 

Lapis huffed a tired laugh. “And for being a dreaded, terrible queer,” she added.

“That too.”

They moved closer, hands grazing. 

“Jas,” said Lapis. “How many weeks has it been?”

Jasper counted, recounted. “I don’t know…Four months? I don’t know how many weeks.”

“I should have tried to get the pill for you.” Lapis let out a shaky sigh. “I didn’t even think of that. It’s too late for that now. And— Oh, _fuck_ —”

Lapis slid off the truck and walked away through the grass. Hundreds of dust-mote insects rose from the dried up shrubs. Crickets creaked in protest. She got to the fence that enclosed the water-tower’s dry meadow, kicked a wood fencepost and sat down hard in the dirt, knees to her chest, elbows on her knees and her hands in her hair.

Jasper followed, wading through the crackling meadow as it tickled her shins. She stood over Lapis, waiting for someone to say something. No one did. Jasper knelt in the grass, stones digging into her knees. Lapis wiped her eyes. 

“I hate this fucking town,” she whispered. “I hate the catholic school and all the church moms who pray for sinners like us…And all the dads forcing their boys to play football because they _ain’t no queer._ Fucking hell. The shit they say at church about women and abortion and LGBT people makes me so fucking angry…” 

Jasper didn’t reply. She hoped that all the people praying for her would save her, at least help. She hoped for Heaven. And when she looked up again Lapis was in front of her, pushing her back into the grass. 

“For old time’s sake,” she said. 

They lay down, pressing foreheads, cheeks, lips together. Lapis kissed angrily, biting, and Jasper kissed back. Neither left marks that couldn’t be covered as their kisses moved from mouth, to neck, to shoulders. Jasper’s flannel was unbuttoned, undervest lifted, as cold hands found skin, found warmth. Her face flushed hot and red. They kissed until finally Lapis sat up, straddling Jasper’s waist, her loose trousers all crooked, and tucked her short hair behind her ears. Her mouth opened and closed slightly as if she was searching for something to say. Eventually she found something:

“If anyone finds out, we’re fucked.” She laughed bitterly. 

Jasper stared up at her, catching her breath. “I know.” 

“My mom wants me to cut my hair. It’s getting too long, _apparently_.” Lapis tucked hair behind her ears again, it wasn’t quite long enough to stay behind them. Her fringe almost covered her eyebrows. 

“It’d look nice longer,” Jasper replied. She pulled her undervest down over her chest and her stomach.

Lapis carefully leant forward again, head under Jasper’s chin. 

“Has your dad asked you who…who got you pregnant?” she asked.

“He thinks it’s that guy he hired a while back to replace the electric fence,” Jasper said, and then she hummed, thinking. “I don’t even remember his name. He stayed with us for a couple days back in February —or March— just ‘cause it was easier.”

“The spitting guy?”

“Yeah. He chewed tobacco.”

“Wasn’t he, like, late-twenties/early-thirties?”

Jasper sighed, “Doesn’t matter to my father. He’s angrier at me.”

“That’s fucked up,” said Lapis. 

Jasper only nodded.

 

For the sake of a little more privacy, comfort and avoiding snakes, what happened next happened in the backseat of Lapis’ car. And when it was over they lay for a moment on the tousled blanket that had been draped across the backseat. Lapis wrapped it over their shoulders. Her hair stuck up at odd angles, having had fingers run through it several times over. 

“What time is it?” Jasper asked. 

Lapis sat up and glared at the radio until she could make out the numbers displayed there. “One-thirty. That okay?”

Jasper nodded. 

“Jasper?” Lapis’ gaze was unmeetable, wandering from the window to the blanket to Jasper’s shoulder.

“Yes?”

“Can I feel your stomach? Or listen?,” she asked, then laughed. “I don’t know.”

Trying not to feel so afraid, Jasper shrugged like it didn’t matter (it did, a lot) and said,

“Okay.”

Lapis sat between Jasper’s legs and bent over, left ear to Jasper’s stomach. She didn’t say anything, just blinked and listened for a long time. After a while she closed her eyes. Her eyelashes were dark, her eyes heavy. Even when she looked as if she could be sleeping she held a tired and angry furrow on her brow. Jasper did too.

There was a quiet pattering. Lapis sat up, blinking wearily. Summer rain had rolled in with the night and begun to drum softly on the roof of the car.

“Thank God,” sighed Lapis.

Jasper sat up. “Hm?”

“I missed the rain. It sounds like belonging and sleep,” Lapis replied. She breathed in the smell of rain on hot, cracked earth, and closed her eyes again. “I wish I could keep this feeling. Or just put it all on pause for a while. God…the relief of the rain, the sound, the _stars_ … I might cry.”

Jasper didn’t think she could hold it together if Lapis cried too.

“Did you hear anything?” she asked. 

“Inside?” Lapis placed her hand on Jasper’s stomach.

Jasper nodded.

“Only you. Your heartbeat. Your breath.”

 

They dressed in comfortable silence, finding their clothes strewn about the floor of the car and hanging on headrests. Their faces were warm, legs getting cold. 

Before they left Lapis walked to the far side of the meadow to look at the stars. She stood, face tilted skyward, until Jasper called her back — _it’s nearly half-two_. 

“Alright. Homeward,” said Lapis as she got in the driver’s seat. She wiped her teary eyes, yawning. “If I think about how incomprehensibly infinite space is for too long I’ll probably lose my mind. It just…It fucks me up.”

Jasper watched the stars above the far horizon as Lapis turned the car onto the main road. “Yeah…Me too.”

“When I look up into space like that I feel like I’ll be able to fly away into it. Like I’ll just float. Or grow wings. I don’t know…It just seems so easy.” Lapis sighed a quiet laugh. She shook her head at herself and finished, “I think about that a lot.”

Jasper said nothing but understood it all. Lapis cranked her window down. She closed her eyes, only for a short while, to drink the night air in.

And softly, the radio sang:

 

_Pappa died Sunday_

_And I understood_

_All dead white boys say,_

_“God is good”_

_White tongues hang out_

_“God is good”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you enjoyed!! Comments and Kudos would be very much appreciated <3 <3
> 
> (and the song they're listening to it Sodom South Georgia by Iron & Wine. I listened to it most of the time writing this chapter..check it out! i love it a lot..)


	4. Track Team

It begun six months ago. Behind the high school, where no thinks to go.

Lapis had lit a blunt and huddled in an alcove to get away from the cold and gym class. The sky was pale blue, sparse, thin blankets of cloud doing nothing to keep the warm air in. Lapis watched smoke as she exhaled. She slumped back in her coat. 

Down the hill from where she sat a class stood in a line on the track that circled the playing fields, jogging in place in their track team uniforms. They wore their socks pulled up to the knee. They rubbed their goose-bumped bare thighs. 

Pearl was amongst the group, and Jasper too. Pearl balanced effortlessly on one leg, stretching out her quads. Besides her Jasper did the same, less gracefully. 

Lapis rolled her eyes. 

 

“‘Sup.”

Lapis nearly dropped her blunt.

It was only Ame. Who was laughing.

“Fuck you,” said Lapis. 

Ame, dressed in torn-up low-hanging jeans and a hoody, sat besides her in the alcove. 

“I got dress-coded,” she sighed. 

Lapis looked her up and down. “What did you expect?”

“Dress-code is fucking _stupid_ ,” Ame grumbled, playing with a loose thread on her fingerless gloves. “I refused to put on their trashy, nasty clothes and I got sent home.”

Lapis passed her the blunt. It was nearly done.

“Yeah. I’d protest with you but Blue would probably murder me. Like, if I got sent home. I don’t have the energy for shit like that.”

Ame sighed out smoke. “Pearl’s gonna be pissed.”

“Well, Pearl’s got a stick up her ass,” said Lapis, rolling her eyes. Then, as she gestured to the playing fields: “Speaking of.”

Both her and Ame peered out from the alcove, watching.

Most of the track team were standing spread out across the field now. Four groups of four runners stood at 100 meter marks along the track, the first runner fidgeting with a baton. 

Ame laughed. “Their shorts and socks are _sooo_ dumb.”

Lapis snorted and took the dying blunt back.“Ha. Yeah.”

They watched silently as the first and second runners of each team ran. Then, when the third came up, Ame said: “Hell yeah, P! Get that baton to big J!” 

Pearl passed the baton to Jasper, who sprinted to the finish line, slowed to a jog after she’d crossed it. She circled back around to talk to Pearl.

“They’re going to win that athletics thing for sure,” Ame said. 

“Probably.” 

“Y’know the football coach told Jas that he was going to ask if she could play football in, like, real games?” Ame asked. “Like, against other schools.”

“She’s not allowed to?” 

“Nah. It’s boys-only,” replied Ame, air-quoting _boys-only_. “Same reason I can’t do fuckin’ wrestling. They’re lucky I can’t. I’d beat all their asses.”

“Ha, yeah,” said Lapis. She took one last drag and threw the end of the blunt onto the floor, stomping it out. “You would.”

“Big J would kick all those dipshits’ asses too. In football.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, she does, in practice or whatever.” Amethyst leant back into the alcove, stuffing her hands in her pockets. She huffed a long sigh. “This place sucks.”

From across the field a collective noise rose up, a kind of pained, cringing _Oh_. The teams had been running again, passing batons, and Jasper had fallen, slipped on the track. Pearl was attempting to help her up but she seemed to be refusing (not politely), slowly getting to her feet. 

Lapis snorted, rolling her eyes.

“You’re a fuckin’ asshole,” Ame laughed, punching her shoulder. 

They stopped laughing when they heard shouting. Jasper was yelling at Pearl, who was yelling back. Jasper stood, dusting off her knees as the coach came up besides her and started to say something. But Jasper had already turned away from him and began to walk around the bleachers and up the grass slope, in the direction of Lapis and Ame. 

“ _Shit_ ,” hissed Lapis. She pulled her legs against her chest and turned sideways in the alcove. Ame did the same.

“If we get busted for fuckin’ weed, I swear to God…” Lapis said. “That’d be so pathetic…but Blue would fucking _kill me_.”

“Then we can get kicked out together,” said Ame, trying not to laugh.

Lapis shushed her.

Ame laughed. “Oh hey, if we ever get expelled let’s trash the place, graffiti the lockers n shit!”

Lapis sighed. “Do you have any mints?” she asked. 

Ame shook her head.

They both watched as Jasper got to the top of the hill and sat down on the grass, facing away from them. She sat with her left leg pulled to her chest, the other out long as she looked it over, pressed a hand to it. She hissed, swore.

Lapis and Ame watched her for a moment. Then looked back to each other.

Ame shrugged.

Lapis rolled her eyes, muttering a _Jesus Christ_ beneath her breath.

“Hey, Romanov! Dip-shit!” she called from the alcove. "You’re gonna get us caught.”

Ame snorted, laughed into her hand.

Jasper startled. She was already on her feet, wide eyed and turned to look at them.

“What—”

Ame shushed her. “Get over here, J.”

Jasper furrowed her brow, eyeing them both suspiciously. She walked towards them.

“What are you doing? Why are you out here?” she asked.

Her right leg was scuffed up, red on her knee and a little ways up her thigh.

Lapis sighed. “We’re ditching, fuck-ass.”

She took another joint from the coin-purse she kept in the bottom of her bag and lit it. There was a long silence as she took a long drag. And, as she exhaled, she looked at Jasper and said:

“You’re knee’s fuckin’ bleeding.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kudos and comments are both very much appreciated thankyu !!
> 
> also i made a pinterest board for this fic lol  
> https://www.pinterest.co.uk/coniferouskiddo/4months-fic/

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if i got any farming things wrong..I dont live in America. All the farms here are just sheep or potatoes.  
> Also sorry if i got the spanish wrong. I used to be learning spanish and i dont remember much anymore.  
> And sorry for this weird concept..idk where i got the idea.
> 
> Please leave a comment/kudos if you enjoyed !


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